Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 31

November 30-December 1, 2024: November 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

November4: The 1924 Election: Harding’s Shadow: A series on the 100th anniversaryof another wild election starts with lingering scandals from a deceasedpresident.

November5: The 1924 Election: Three VP Nominees: The series continues with threeGOP VP candidates who embody electoral chaos.

November6: The 1924 Election: KKKonventions: The Klan’s influence on both 1924Conventions and a contemporary echo, as the series campaigns on.

November7: The 1924 Election: La Follette’s 3rd Party: In honor of oneof the most successful 3rd party candidates in American history,three ways to analyze why such candidates exist at all.

November8: The 1924 Election: Foreshadowing the Future: The series concludes withthree ways that the 1924 election foreshadowed future political events.

November9-10: 2024 Election Reflections: I wanted in much of a mood for extendedreflecting after the 2024 election, but I did have one thing I wanted to makesure to say.

November11: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Foregrounding Favorites:For the blog’s 14th anniversary I wanted to highlight a handful ofthe types of posts that have kept me blogging all these years, starting with myfocus on favorites.

November12: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Lifelong Learning: The anniversaryseries continues with posts that have helped me continue to learn.

November13: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Teaching Thoughts: Howmuch I’ve appreciated the chance to reflect on my teaching in this space, asthe series celebrates on.

November14: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Great Guests: GuestPosts have been my favorite part of writing this blog—and I hope you’ll proposeone of your own!

November15: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Communal Crowd-Sourcing:The series concludes with a second way I’ve been able to share y’all’s thoughtson the blog.

November16-17: AmericanStudies’ 14th Anniversary!: Thankful Tributes: Aspecial weekend tribute to five folks who have helped make the blog what it’s becomeover these 14 years.

November18: AmericanTemperanceStudying: A 1623 Origin Point: For a famous organization’s150th anniversary, a TemperanceStudying series kicks off with afoundational law.

November19: AmericanTemperanceStudying: The Early Republic: The series continueswith three milestone moments in the movement’s early 19C evolutions.

November20: AmericanTemperanceStudying: Three Reformers: Takeaways from a trio ofradical reformers across the 19C, as the series abstains on.

November21: AmericanTemperanceStudying: The Anti-Saloon League: One importantinnovation and one troubling interconnection for America’s most influential temperanceorganization.

November22: AmericanTemperanceStudying: Prohibition: Three great scholarly booksthat can help us consider the multilayered contexts for temperance’s greatestsuccess.

November23-24: AmericanTemperanceStudying: The WCTU: The series concludes with six womenwho helped shape the Women’s Christian Temperance Union on its 150thanniversary.

November25: Podcast Thanks: A Serendipitous Conversation: For this year’sThanksgiving series I wanted to give thanks for moments and folks who helpedmake my podcast what it was, starting with a conversational origin point.

November26: Podcast Thanks: Supportive Peers: The series continues with fellowpodcasters who both modeled the work and gave me a chance to talk about mine.

November27: Podcast Thanks: CEM Connections: A vital website without which I neverwould have been able to create my podcast, as the series thanks on.

November28: Podcast Thanks: Audience Love: For Thanksgiving, how three of myfavorite people became pitch-perfect audience members for the podcast.

November29: Podcast Thanks: A Narrative History: And the series and thanks concludewith a narrative history that modeled that challenging and crucial form.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

November 29, 2024: Podcast Thanks: A Narrative History

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

As I hopeall of my work over the last few years has made clear, including this blog andmy #ScholarSunday threadsand much else besides, public scholarly community and conversation areconsistently central to everything I do. Often that means sharing other folks’work, but sometimes it means highlighting scholarly models for what I’m tryingto do with my own projects. In the case of this project, as I discussed inWednesday’s post, the lack of definitive historical information meant that Ihad to think about whether and how to fill in and fill out those histories withsome narrative, with imaginative storytelling to complement the sources. And inso doing I had a great public scholarly model, one that I overtly talked aboutin one of my episodes: SaidiyaHartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. I was inspired bothby the ways Hartman works to create the perspectives and identities of herfocal historical subjects and by the moments where she brings her ownperspective and voice into the conversation, and I hope I did justice to bothof those elements in my podcast. I’d be grateful if you shared your thoughts atany point!

NovemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: I’d be thankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know yourthoughts!

November 28, 2024: Podcast Thanks: Audience Love

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

HappyThanksgiving (and NationalDay of Mourning too)! For me the holiday is all about family, and so I hadto dedicate today’s post to my podcast’s three most dedicated audience members:my parents and my wife. They didn’t just listen, either—their thoughtful responsesand contributions truly shaped every part of the podcast, making both theexperience and the product infinitely better than they otherwise would havebeen. If I were to give fellow first-time podcasters any advice based on my owninitial experiences with the medium, it’d be that it is really important tohave particular audiences in mind when we’re writing and recording, so we’renot just talking to ourselves (this advice would obviously be different for aco-hosted podcast or one featuring guests). For me, these three favorite peoplewere my pitch-perfect ideal listeners and conversation partners.  

Lastthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. I’d bethankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know your thoughts!

November 27, 2024: Podcast Thanks: CEM Connections

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

As Idiscussed throughout the podcast, and really got into fully in my PostgamePress Conference (an extra, 10th episode), one of the most challengingaspects of telling this story was the significant lack of information about itskey events and histories. That meant I had to do the imaginative work I’ll talkmore about in Friday’s post. But it also meant I had to rely quite a bit on afew key sources, and none was more crucial than the semi-defunct butfortunately not entirely lost CEM Connectionswebsite (I’m no longer able to access the site on my computer, but it stillworks on my phone, just FYI), and especially its extensive biographicalinformation on all 120 CEM students. I’ll forever be grateful to the site’sco-creators Bruce Chan and Dana Young for their work (and to Bruce for histhoughtful responses to and pushback on the podcast itself, which I alsoengaged in that Postgame Press Conference), and can only hope that itencourages more folks to find their way to the website and continue supportingtheir historical projects as well.

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. I’d bethankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know your thoughts!

November 26, 2024: Podcast Thanks: Supportive Peers

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

As Imentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve had the chance to appear on quite a fewpodcasts over the last few years, including the ones highlightedin this list among others. That meant I had a ton of great models for howto make the most of the medium, which was one vital way that my peer podcastershelped me immeasurably in creating my own. But I also had the chance to talkabout my podcast on a couple of those excellent examples of the genre: LiamHeffernan’s America: A History and Kelly Pollock’s UnsungHistory (my second timeon that great podcast). Starting an entirely new type of project can be a verydaunting endeavor, and I’m so grateful to have had such inspiring models andsupportive peers at every step of the process.

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. I’d bethankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know your thoughts!

November 25, 2024: Podcast Thanks: A Serendipitous Conversation

[The mostsignificant part of my work this fall was the launch of my first publicscholarly podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Alot of factors helped make that work possible, so for my annual Thanksgivingseries I wanted to express my gratitude to a handful of them!]

Asattentive readers of this blog will remember, for many years The Celestials’Last Game was a book manuscript and proposal. The transformation into apublic scholarly podcast didn’t happen in any one moment, but the idea for it actuallydid: while taking part in retirement celebrations for my PhD advisor, ProfessorMiles Orvell, I happened to have a conversation with one of his recentundergrad students at Temple University. She was kind enough to ask about whatI was working on, and when I described both the project and my struggles toland it with a publisher, she (an avid podcast listener herself) mentioned thatit sounded like a great idea for a podcast. Despite having appeared on manypodcasts as a guest, I have to admit I had never thought about creating one ofmy own, so this serendipitous conversation was really important in presentingme with that possibility and lighting the initial spark that would end up withmy first podcast.

Nextthanks tomorrow,

Ben

PS. I’d bethankful if you’d check out the podcast and let me know your thoughts!

November 23-24, 2024: AmericanTemperanceStudying: The WCTU

[150 yearsago this week, the Women’sChristian Temperance Union was founded at a nationalconvention in Cleveland. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handfulof key temperance histories, leading up to this weekend post on the influentialorganization launched by that 1874 convention!]

Six impressivewomen who together reflect the evolution of a successful and still-activeorganization.

1)     MatildaGilruth Carpenter: No national organization springs to life without morelocal efforts on which it’s building, and that was certainly the case for theWCTU, which in many ways began in central Ohio in lateDecember, 1873. It was there that a reformer and religious leader named MatildaGilruth Carpenter spearheaded an effort to close saloons, calling her communitythe Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the process. The bookshe authored a couple decades later about those experiences is one layer toher legacy, but the national organization that met in her native Ohio about ayear later is certainly another.  

2)     AnnieTurner Wittenmyer: By the time she was elected as the WCTU’s firstpresident at that 1874 convention, Annie Turner Wittenmyer had been a prominentactivist for at least a decade, most especially through her Civil War-eraefforts with Soldiers’ Aid Societies, Sanitary Commissions, and dietaryreforms. But Wittenmyer’s activism made an effort to be as apolitical, or atleast non-partisan,as possible, and she frequently fought with other WCTU leaders over whether theorganization should address (much less support) women’s suffrage. Which is why in1879 she lost the presidency to…

3)     Frances Willard:Willard was a groundbreaking educator who also became one of the late 19thcentury’s most impassioned and effective feminist activists, and she saw the WCTUas very much part of the overall women’s movement, rather than solely or evencentrally a temperance organization. In her 19years as WCTU President (a term ended only when she passed away in 1898)she pushed the organization to fight for not only suffrage, but also many othersocial reforms, including equal pay for equal work, uniform divorce laws, andfree kindergarten. She also founded the World’sWoman’s Christian Temperance Union to make these efforts truly global.

4)     Bessie Laythe Scovell:Think globally, act locally isn’t a new idea, though, and some of the mostsuccessful WCTU efforts took place in state chapters. Probably the mostprominent and effective of those state chapters was the Minnesota WCTU, whichwas founded in 1877; Scovell didn’t become its president until 1897, so itsefforts were well established by then, but she became a particularly importantsymbol of this chapter’s groundbreaking work, especially among immigrantcommunities in the state. In that hyperlinked “President’s Address,” deliveredat the Minnesota WCTU’s 24th Annual Meeting in 1900, Scovell laysout her holistic and progressive vision for the organization and how it couldbecome better connected to immigrant communities through linguistic andcultural solidarity.

5)     FrancesEllen Watkins Harper and ElizaPierce: Such local efforts certainly helped advance the WCTU’s cause, but evenmore important were the leaders of color who could help make the organizationmore truly representative of the American population. That included Harper, theAfricanAmerican poet, novelist, educator, and activist who led the WCTU’s “Departmentof Work Among the Colored People”; and Pierce, the Iroquois NativeAmerican activist who started a new New York chapter and extended the WCTUto Six Nations communities throughout the state. As with all the temperancehistories I’ve highlighted this week, the WCTU’s was complex and could featureexclusionary attitudes to be sure; but women like Harper and Pierce helped makesure it likewise featured inclusive possibilities.

Thanksgivingseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

November 22, 2024: AmericanTemperanceStudying: Prohibition

[150 yearsago this week, the Women’s Christian TemperanceUnion was founded at anational convention in Cleveland. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handfulof key temperance histories, leading up to a weekend post on that 1874convention!]

On threegreat scholarly books that can help us analyze an incredibly multi-facetedhistorical period and its many legacies.

1)     Lisa McGirr’s The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Riseof the American State (2015): Yesterday I argued that theAnti-Saloon League’s successful pressure politics were instrumental in finallyachieving the movement’s longstanding goal of nationwide Prohibition. That wasabsolutely a factor, but it’s also far from a coincidence that the 18thAmendment passed Congress in 1917 (the same year as theEspionage Act) and was ratified in 1919 (the same year that the post-WWI PalmerRaids began). As McGirr argues convincingly, World War I specificallyand many wartime contexts more broadly were crucial to turning Prohibition froma movement priority into a nationwide policy—and while that particular policyended with theamendment’s repeal in 1933, many of those wartime contexts have enduredin the 90 years since.

2)     Stephen Moore’s Bootleggers and Borders: The Paradox ofProhibition on a Canada-U.S. Borderland(2014):Another crucial legacy of the Prohibition era was the creation of—and yes, Imean that precisely; not just newfound attention to, but in many ways thecreation of—the U.S.-Canadian border as a spacefor law enforcement concerns and activity. My paternal grandfather and hisparents moved across that border and into New Hampshire in the mid-1910s withno hassle or legal attention of any kind; but just a few years later, thatwould have been impossible, and as Moore argues Prohibition enforcement was thereason why. While the U.S.-Mexico border was not as much of a Prohibition focalpoint, it’s no coincidence that it was likewise during the1920s that that border became genuinely patrolled. The end ofProhibition was only the start of U.S. border patrols, of course.

3)     Marni Davis’ Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Ageof Prohibition (2012): I wrote a bit in yesterday’s postabout the interconnections between white supremacy, race, and Prohibition,especially in the alliance between the Anti-Saloon League and the Ku Klux Klan.The 1920s Klan focused equally on anti-Black and anti-immigrant domesticterrorisms, of course; and as Davis’ book traces powerfully, so too wasProhibition driven by anti-immigrant and anti-Semiticnarratives. I’ve argued for many years in many different settings that the1920s represented a nadir of American racism, xenophobia, and exclusion—andyes, I’m well aware that this is a very competitive contest; but the more Ilearn, the more convinced I am that this was indeed a stunning low point—andit’s crucially important that we include Prohibition in our understanding ofthose elements of 1920s America.

WCTU postthis weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

November 21, 2024: AmericanTemperanceStudying: The Anti-Saloon League

[150 yearsago this week, the Women’s Christian TemperanceUnion was founded at anational convention in Cleveland. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handfulof key temperance histories, leading up to a weekend post on that 1874convention!]

On oneimportant innovation and one troubling interconnection for America’s mostinfluential temperance organization.

Each ofthe posts in this series has moved between more individual and more collectiveand organizational temperance activisms, and I don’t think that’s just due tomy own choices and focal points: it seems to me that any social movement thatendures and achieves significant successes likely needs both groundbreakingleaders and widespread communal support. Similarly, the final push towardProhibition (on which more in tomorrow’s concluding post) in the late 19thand early 20th centuries relied on both the individual presence andprominence of yesterday’s subject Carrie Nation and the social and politicalconnections of the Anti-Saloon League. Foundedin 1893 in Oberlin, Ohio, the League certainly featured its share of impressiveindividual leaders, from founder HowardHyde Russell to the hugely influential lawyer WayneBidwell Wheeler among others. But it was precisely the League’s organizationalpresence that made it so effective in shifting national conversations.

The Leagueutilized a number of strategies to achieve those aims, including creating itsown AmericanIssue Publishing Company in 1909; that publisher produced and mailedso many pamphlets that its hometown of Westerville, Ohio became the smallesttown to feature afirst-class post office in the period. But by far the mostinfluential element of the Anti-Saloon League’s activist efforts was a strategythat the organizationseems to have created (and which was certainly related to thoseubiquitous publications): pressurepolitics, the concept of using a variety of interconnected means, frommass media and communication to intimidation and threats, to pressure politicalleaders to support and pass particular legislation and policies. There’s nodoubt that it was the successful application of such political pressure by theLeague and its allies (but most especially by the League) that convinced enoughnational and state politicians to support Prohibition (after well more than ahalf-century of unsuccessful temperance movement efforts toward that specificend), leading to the Congressional passage and state-level ratification of the 18thAmendment in 1919.

I’ll havea lot more to say about that specific League legacy tomorrow. But it’simportant to add a troubling layer and contemporary context, particularly tothe application of pressure politics: the other organization which used thatstrategy with particular effectiveness in the 1920s was the resurgent Ku KluxKlan. Moreover, this wasn’t a coincidence or even just a parallel—as historianHoward Ball has discovered, in a setting like late 1910s and 1920s Birminghamthe two organizations were closely connected, to the point that a local journalist wrote, “InAlabama, it is hard to tell where the Anti-Saloon League ends and the Klanbegins.” And it wasn’t just Alabama—throughout the 1920s the two organizationsbecame allies not only in enforcing Prohibition (although I’m sure the Leaguewould say that was their only goal) but in achieving their political and socialgoals on multiple levels. The ties between whitesupremacy and American social movements are far from unique to temperance, ofcourse—but that doesn’t excuse in any way this most influential temperanceorganization’s symbiotic relationship with white supremacist domesticterrorists.

Last temperancehistories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

November 20, 2024: AmericanTemperanceStudying: Three Reformers

[150 yearsago this week, the Women’s Christian TemperanceUnion was founded at anational convention in Cleveland. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handfulof key temperance histories, leading up to a weekend post on that 1874convention!]

Ontakeaways from a trio of temperance reformers across the 19thcentury.

1)     SylvesterGraham (1794-1851): As that hyperlinked article argues, Graham’stemperance activism was just one small part of his truly multi-layered effortsfor health and wellness reform. But my older son dressed up as and interpretedGraham for an APUSH project earlier this year, and in his honor (and in tributeto Graham’s most enduring legacy, the undeniably tasty GrahamCracker) I wanted to include the quirky and influential Graham in thispost. Moreover, Graham did hold a position for years with one of theorganizations I highlighted yesterday, the Philadelphia Temperance Society, sohe did see alcohol abstinence as an important part of his overallhealth reforms. While analyzing the longitudinal history of the temperancemovement over these 400 years is one important way to think about this issue,it’s equally worthwhile to connect each specific moment latitudinally to otherelements of its era and society, as Graham’s multi-faceted efforts remind us.

2)     Neal Dow: But somereformers did laser-focus on temperance throughout their lives and careers, andwhile Portland,Maine’s Neal Dow (1804-1897) did other important work aswell—including with the Underground Railroad and as a Civil War BrigadierGeneral—temperance was the through-line, leading to his nickname as the “Fatherof Prohibition.” Active in the movement since his early 20s, it was with a pairof closely linked mid-century elections that he really took his efforts to thenext level: he was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union in 1850 andthen mayor of Portland in 1851. Dow saw his political role as an extension of hismovement activism, to the point where in 1855 he ordered statemilitia members to open fire on rioters who opposed his “Maine Law,” thefirst in the nation to prohibit all alcohol. Dow even tried to take thosepolitical goals truly nationwide, running for President in 1880 as the nominee ofthe Prohibition Party. In those and other ways, the politicalhistory of prohibition is inseparable from the career of Neal Dow.

3)     Carrie (sometimesCarry) Nation (1846-1911): While Dow did order that moment of militia violence,his own activisms remained more on the organizational and legal levels, as wasthe case with the 19th and early 20th century temperancemovement as a whole. But all social movements feature a variety of perspectivesand tactics, and not long after Dow’s presidential run the temperance movementcame to be dominated by a figure who preferred much more direct and violentaction. Believing herself called from God to oppose all things alcohol—“a bulldogrunning along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” as she strikinglyput it—Nation’s activist weapon of choice was neither words nor laws,but a literal weapon, the hatchet with which she attacked both liquor bottlesand the businesses that served them (leading to the nickname “HatchetGranny”). While Nation was part of the broader community of theAnti-Saloon League about which I’ll write tomorrow, she was also profoundly andpowerfully individual, as were each of these influential temperance reformers.

Next temperancehistories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?